5 reasons why portals are still a great digital solution
Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2024 6:19 am
An illustration of an enterprise portal
Since their inception, digital portals, intranets and official websites have become key elements of modern digital work environments, in part because they are their predecessors. The concept of portals has been around since the 1990s – then known as “web portals” – but their significance has grown as the Internet has become a global market.
Today, web portals are everywhere, but they go unnoticed, since most of the time they operate behind the scenes of service design: employee portals, self-service portals, e-commerce portals, supplier portals, B2B portals, etc. When a user logs in and focuses only on accomplishing what they need to do, they are probably interacting with a portal.
Digital portals play a crucial role in meeting industry challenges as digital workplaces are rapidly evolving. They are assimilating best practices from multiple sources – SaaS, social media and mobile apps – to create a new kind of productivity hub that every company needs. Digital workplaces have not only become a replacement for physical offices, they now also complement, drive and automate business or operational processes.
Global companies and large organizations that have cyprus business email list digital workplaces often share weaknesses: excess and/or lack of organization of information, low engagement with employees, multiple disconnected experiences and, in general, a lack of direction to pursue the common goals of diverse audiences. To combat these challenges, simply having a sophisticated mobile application or an innovative SaaS may no longer be enough. The best option in these cases is a business portal: a powerful solution that can automate your business processes and at the same time meet the technical requirements necessary to operate your company.
Here are 5 reasons why business portals are still important today for large and ever-growing digital environments.
1. Digital portals help integrate large ecosystems
The most important function of a web portal is not to display information, but to integrate data. Portals are capable of integrating applications, mobile apps, legacy systems, dashboards, and content, all within a single experience. By gathering all key information and data, it is possible to display information in a more user-friendly way for employees, customers, and people related to your business. Just think about online banking: Would it make sense to review your bank statements if they were just numbers? Portals provide the necessary context for users, leaders, and teams in their decision-making processes.
By integrating applications and data from key company departments, web portals can be a one-stop shop for everything an employee or vendor needs to get their job done—from ERPs to metrics dashboards, HR requests, campaigns, and safety procedures. Portals are common integrators in the world of digital work environments, and are a good option for centralizing all your resources and insights so your teams can access them seamlessly.
2. Web portals are multi-purpose
In general, mobile and web applications usually tend to have clear and specific objectives. They guide users step by step to achieve them, such as scheduling appointments or checking the status of an order. Portals, on the other hand, are multi-purpose. They can have specific areas or sections, controlled with defined user permissions and roles, to achieve different objectives. For example, R&D and Sales departments can have their own secure space for their daily tasks and thus decide how and when to communicate with each other.
Many SaaS digital workplaces offer experiences tailored to their employees, based on their defined goals or tasks. For large organizations, this oversimplification can be detrimental to business processes. For those companies that need to manage different types of user groups with different outcomes and overcome the challenge of connecting them together, implementing a portal is still the best solution.
3. The design of digital portals can be focused on mobile devices
Portals have also evolved a lot over time. Using new frameworks, design systems and templates, they can be made mobile-first and accessible via mobile devices. Most portals need some preparation to achieve this, so it should be considered as a specific stage in re-platforming or digital platform improvement projects.
Depending on the nature of your business, having a mobile-friendly design and/or responsive portal may be more important than having a desktop experience. As we’ve mentioned before on this blog , being accessible to those business audiences that are in the operation is key when there is any remote or hybrid work involved.
And even more importantly, they will save you time and effort in terms of development and maintenance: content on portals can be updated and maintained regularly without the need for an IT team, and can be accessed on both iOS and Android devices via a browser. Mobile apps usually require more effort to be updated and even need separate projects or teams for native versions.
4. Digital portals are safe
When implemented with a Digital Experience Platform (DXP), portals meet the requirements and certifications necessary at an enterprise level. From SOC2 to Fedramp, portals can handle information securely, making them the best solution for any organization that handles high volumes of user information, transactions, sales, or sensitive reports.
Since their inception, digital portals, intranets and official websites have become key elements of modern digital work environments, in part because they are their predecessors. The concept of portals has been around since the 1990s – then known as “web portals” – but their significance has grown as the Internet has become a global market.
Today, web portals are everywhere, but they go unnoticed, since most of the time they operate behind the scenes of service design: employee portals, self-service portals, e-commerce portals, supplier portals, B2B portals, etc. When a user logs in and focuses only on accomplishing what they need to do, they are probably interacting with a portal.
Digital portals play a crucial role in meeting industry challenges as digital workplaces are rapidly evolving. They are assimilating best practices from multiple sources – SaaS, social media and mobile apps – to create a new kind of productivity hub that every company needs. Digital workplaces have not only become a replacement for physical offices, they now also complement, drive and automate business or operational processes.
Global companies and large organizations that have cyprus business email list digital workplaces often share weaknesses: excess and/or lack of organization of information, low engagement with employees, multiple disconnected experiences and, in general, a lack of direction to pursue the common goals of diverse audiences. To combat these challenges, simply having a sophisticated mobile application or an innovative SaaS may no longer be enough. The best option in these cases is a business portal: a powerful solution that can automate your business processes and at the same time meet the technical requirements necessary to operate your company.
Here are 5 reasons why business portals are still important today for large and ever-growing digital environments.
1. Digital portals help integrate large ecosystems
The most important function of a web portal is not to display information, but to integrate data. Portals are capable of integrating applications, mobile apps, legacy systems, dashboards, and content, all within a single experience. By gathering all key information and data, it is possible to display information in a more user-friendly way for employees, customers, and people related to your business. Just think about online banking: Would it make sense to review your bank statements if they were just numbers? Portals provide the necessary context for users, leaders, and teams in their decision-making processes.
By integrating applications and data from key company departments, web portals can be a one-stop shop for everything an employee or vendor needs to get their job done—from ERPs to metrics dashboards, HR requests, campaigns, and safety procedures. Portals are common integrators in the world of digital work environments, and are a good option for centralizing all your resources and insights so your teams can access them seamlessly.
2. Web portals are multi-purpose
In general, mobile and web applications usually tend to have clear and specific objectives. They guide users step by step to achieve them, such as scheduling appointments or checking the status of an order. Portals, on the other hand, are multi-purpose. They can have specific areas or sections, controlled with defined user permissions and roles, to achieve different objectives. For example, R&D and Sales departments can have their own secure space for their daily tasks and thus decide how and when to communicate with each other.
Many SaaS digital workplaces offer experiences tailored to their employees, based on their defined goals or tasks. For large organizations, this oversimplification can be detrimental to business processes. For those companies that need to manage different types of user groups with different outcomes and overcome the challenge of connecting them together, implementing a portal is still the best solution.
3. The design of digital portals can be focused on mobile devices
Portals have also evolved a lot over time. Using new frameworks, design systems and templates, they can be made mobile-first and accessible via mobile devices. Most portals need some preparation to achieve this, so it should be considered as a specific stage in re-platforming or digital platform improvement projects.
Depending on the nature of your business, having a mobile-friendly design and/or responsive portal may be more important than having a desktop experience. As we’ve mentioned before on this blog , being accessible to those business audiences that are in the operation is key when there is any remote or hybrid work involved.
And even more importantly, they will save you time and effort in terms of development and maintenance: content on portals can be updated and maintained regularly without the need for an IT team, and can be accessed on both iOS and Android devices via a browser. Mobile apps usually require more effort to be updated and even need separate projects or teams for native versions.
4. Digital portals are safe
When implemented with a Digital Experience Platform (DXP), portals meet the requirements and certifications necessary at an enterprise level. From SOC2 to Fedramp, portals can handle information securely, making them the best solution for any organization that handles high volumes of user information, transactions, sales, or sensitive reports.